What if president Obama turns out to be three little people in a robot. What if the moon turns out to be made from cool whip? What if cats rise up and enslave the human race...more than they already have?

You going to live your life waiting for those things to happen? I'm not.

As a purely hypothetical thought, if science is able to reveal a god, at worst it would be "interesting" in that it might allow us to define or explain things in a new or modified way and add to our understanding of how the world works.

I've often humorously postulated that; just as we look into the world of atoms and sub-atomic particles, with a small nucleus being "orbited" by electrons, that the same thing could apply for infinite scales, upwards and downwards - perhaps our planet could be seen as a sub-atomic particle in the "atom" of the solar system or galaxy, and on some unfathomable scale upwards, we could be constituent of a molecule in the skin-cell of some creature, just as electrons are a constituent of your arm, or your dog's anus, or your desk's veneer.

Although intended as humour, I would suggest that this would be the only possible scenario in which we could find a "superior being" - something totally indifferent and even unaware of our presence. Certainly not to be feared or worshipped.

However, if the Judeo-Christian god is detected (and maybe communicated with), then I will be forced to admit that the world is a far more depressing place than I had ever imagined; like an ant colony becoming aware of a petulant child, crouching over their nest magnifying-glass in hand...

Also, according to the bible, God does not respect us. So how can God love us, yet not respect us? Respect comes before love, so if God doesn't respect me, then his love is meaningless. Anyhoo, good call Crystal.

For me, strong evidence of a creative intelligence outside what I understand as nature would change quite a lot. If such were proven, I would have to re-order my understanding of reality from the floor up -- whether there actually are absolutes and all that implies for concepts of morality, etc. I would have to try understanding reality from a dualistic viewpoint once again (I tried this in the '60s with large doses of LSD washed down with sips of quantum mechanics, and am not eager for another round of that cocktail). I would be deeply skeptical of course, and can only hope that I would be able to yield my deeply held assumptions in the face of fact. I'm not sure that I could. Like a theist, I have much of my identity invested in what I think is real and so would resist accepting a wholesale turnover of the entire thing. Aside from the unease of finding myself in unfamiliar terrain without what I had presumed a reliable map, it's just a lot of work for a tired old man.

That's my reaction on a personal level, and maybe some of it can be extrapolated to experience of human societies. What would it mean to the universe as a whole if it was consciously created rather than just happened? Moot question best answered by a tautology -- it is what it is.

"What would it mean to the universe as a whole if it was consciously created rather than just happened"

It would be scary to know that the all powerful, super maniacal, psychopath as depicted in the “Good” book was loose in the universe. My first thought would be, “is there a way we can kill the asshole?”